Chennai: Deepak Puri, MD Moser Baer India Ltd, stated that the company is planning to invest Rs 2,000 crore in Tamil Nadu to make photovoltaic films. The project will be licensed in 18 months.

The project will also magnetise major investments by the marketers and product suppliers to the core construction plant that would employ around 4,000 high-end engineers and research workers.

Mr. Puri told ‘Connect 2007’, the ICT event of the Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) organised in association with the Tamil Nadu government and Union information and communication ministry that the company’s overall investment all-through India will reach to around Rs 8,000 crore to Rs 10,000 crore within a few years.
The overall investment

Later Mr. Puri told newspersons, “We will begin construction as soon as we get the land. The photovoltaic films, for the creation of electricity from a light source, mainly solar, will be both for the domestic and export market.”
The majority of the funds required for the project will originate from internal accruements.

“We are also looking for investment opportunities in other states,” he said.
Sakthi Kanta Das, the state industries secretary told that the company would be assigned 100 acre of land in the SIPCOT SEZ at Urgadam, near Chennai.

The company will make investment through its wholly owned subsidiary Moser Baer Photo Voltaic Ltd (MBPV). Orient-express owns or part-owns and manages 35 hotels in 25 countries across the world, besides running luxury trains and cruises.

The worldwide photovoltaic market is projected to climb six-fold to $40 billion by the next three years (2010). The market may blow up speedily with the lowering of the cost of photovoltaics and cost of renewable electricity produced from sunlight.